


Paperwork

by trace_of_scarlet



Category: Hot Fuzz (2007), Marvel, Marvel (Movies), Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-19
Updated: 2012-07-19
Packaged: 2017-11-10 07:44:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/463875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trace_of_scarlet/pseuds/trace_of_scarlet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even SHIELD agents aren’t serious <i>all</i> the time. Some of them rather less so than others. Even if some of them are rather newer than others.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Paperwork

**Author's Note:**

> Beta-ed by my TL, because she is awesome. References one PC Nick ~~Angle~~ Angel.

In the end, he isn’t exactly surprised when the paper airplane goes skidding across his desk: it’s been a long week (though not the longest any of them have ever had) and his computer is even now informing him cheerily that outside it is currently a balmy eighty degrees at ground level. Nevertheless, appearances must be maintained and so he gives the offender a semi-stern look, like a responsible but indulgent schoolteacher.

“I don’t believe that that’s a proper use of SHIELD resources, Barton.”

“Well, I’m bored,” Clint Barton complains, sounding more like a whiny schoolboy than one of the world’s most efficient killers. “I didn’t sign up to be a friggin’ bureaucrat.”

The aforementioned world's most efficient killer promptly gets a second – rather sturdier – paper plane to the face.

“If you’re going to make origami, make it _properly_ ,” Coulson advises him, straight-faced, and is mildly surprised to hear a muffled snort from laughter from the third desk-bound operative in the room. He continues, “And if you _will_ blow up the political power-base of a small Eastern European city in order to play White Knight for your assigned target, don’t blame _me_ for the amount of paperwork Director Fury makes you do afterwards.”

A second snort of laughter makes them both spin in their seats (Barton literally: he wouldn’t be at all surprised if the man gets twitchy enough to seriously suggest a chair-race in the next half-hour) to stare startled at their newest recruit snickering like a schoolgirl in Agent Koenigg’s abandoned office-chair.

Not much surprises Coulson these days - except maybe his boyfriend’s unerring ability to crack his laptop passwords - but he’s read the infamous Black Widow’s profile, the one she tried so hard to burn. He knows to the nearest ten how many she’s killed, noted with professional admiration the exact details of regimes brought down and leaders assassinated, personally compiled a thirteen-page report for the Director on her full skillset, and none of any of that seems to relate to the young redhead now sitting giggling in a stolen (sorry: midnight-requisitioned) office chair fifty thousand feet above the ground.

He raises an eyebrow. “Finished already, Romanoff?”

The curtain comes down like the close of a play and she is serious again, already the perfect agent even though technically she still won’t be an agent until Form 816B has been processed by Human Resources – when Barton has finally filled it out, anyway. “Of course.”

She holds out a massive file of documents, and he can tell without looking that they have all been perfectly completed in triplicate (where applicable).

“Good work,” he nods, permitting her a restrained wry smile. “Barton?”

“Yessir.”

“Progress report, please.”

If he were not the world’s greatest marksman and an agent of SHIELD to boot, Barton would look embarrassed; as it is, he just looks... sheepish. “I’ve.” Awkward pause. “Done a bulletpoint?”

“Oh, well done.” Coulson stands, inspecting the hallowed punctuation mark with all due solemnity. “Truly, that’s a bulletpoint for the ages. One day it will rise up and join the pantheon of the gods.”

“I think it was bulletpoints that got us all this paperwork in the first place,” Romanoff observes as Barton scowls, her blue eyes dancing with suppressed amusement. She’s half right – Fury was actually quite pleased with her acquisition, and grudgingly impressed that Barton achieved it purely on the basis of what is very loosely (in his case) called charm – but, Coulson reflects, it was specifically the bulletpoint between the eyes of the new Hungarian chief-of-police that caused Fury to drown them all in paperwork. The man might have been a vicious little despot with all the morals of a New York subway rat, but even SHIELD cannot kill without repercussions and their director is famously a man who hates mess.

“Yes, well.” Coulson sips sweetened black coffee from the ‘World’s Greatest Agent’ mug on his desk. “As an English guy I used to work with insisted on reminding us: you cannot perpetrate that amount of chaos and mayhem without incurring a considerable amount of paperwork.”

The other two look at him blankly; he shrugs. “I ran the Western European division for a while in the Nineties.”

He pauses, looking at Barton sulking behind his desk like a grounded bird, watching Romanoff, who again seems as if she wants to laugh. He wonders what sort of childhood she had, working for the Red Room. Moscow Centre is not, as far as he recalls, exactly famous for its tolerance of laughter even since _Perestroika_ \- and they probably aren’t wild about recreational origami, either.

“Finish your paperwork, Barton,” he says finally. “And then show Agent Romanoff how to assemble a proper paper airplane.”


End file.
